The present invention is within the field of communications systems, particularly in systems where there is one node which has information to transmit to a plurality of other nodes in the system, a scenario which naturally is very common in, for example, cellular wireless networks, in which there is a number of users in a cell, and a “base station”, i.e. a node which controls traffic to and from those users.
A natural goal in a communications system is to transfer information reliably and efficiently. So called Forward Error Correction, FEC, is often used to obtain efficient communications, whereas “classical” Automated Repeat Request, ARQ may be used to obtain reliability.
The reliability aspect ensures that the information will reach the receiving party, whereas the efficiency aspect will commonly ensure that this is done with the least energy or power cost. To meet the twin goals of both efficiency and reliability, Hybrid ARQ, HARQ, has been developed, which combines FEC with basic ARQ functions.
A drawback with the communications techniques described above is that they do not utilize the energy received by a receiving node in a particularly efficient manner, which adversely impacts the throughput of the system, as well as the system delay and the power and energy efficiency of the system.